July 1914: Countdown to War (22 page)

The president, accompanied by Viviani and Paléologue, left the Winter Palace at six
PM
to visit the French hospital before arriving at the French embassy for another banquet. Outwardly everything seemed fine, with the program proceeding smoothly. In their minds, however, both Poincaré and Paléologue (if not also Viviani, who continued sleepwalking through the summit) knew that some kind of Rubicon had been crossed at the Winter Palace. In addition to Buchanan’s revelation that a “violent Austrian note” was to be dispatched to Belgrade, Poincaré had received a report during the day that Léon Descos, France’s minister to Serbia, had suffered a mental breakdown nearly a week ago, on Wednesday, 15 July—shortly before the French delegation
had embarked at sea from Dunkirk. While insignificant in itself, Descos’s collapse meant that Paris had no up-to-date reports on Serbia. Buchanan’s revelation therefore stood out even more starkly: the first news of Serbian affairs that France’s government had received for over a week was that Serbia expected shortly to be attacked by Austria. Louis de Robien, the French embassy attaché in Petersburg who had been accompanying Poincaré on his tour, wrote in his diary on Wednesday morning, 22 July, that “already, in the discussions one sensed that the atmosphere had changed overnight. We were speaking overtly about a war which no one had imagined possible only a few days previously.”
⁷

The most important result of the run-in between Poincaré and Szapáry at the Winter Palace Tuesday afternoon, however, was what happened after the president told Sazonov about it. From Ambassador Shebeko and his chief of staff, Schilling, Russia’s foreign minister already knew, more or less, what the Austrians were up to. Now, steeled up by French support and Poincaré’s example of firmness, Sazonov was loaded for bear. Not wanting to provoke an acute diplomatic crisis, however, he avoided confronting Szapáry directly but would vent his fury at Germany’s ambassador instead.

Sazonov began the Tuesday night audience by reminding Pourtalès of Russia’s position on the Sarajevo outrage. It was an isolated deed of “a few individuals,” for which “an entire state”—Serbia—“could not be made responsible.” For the Austrians to demand redress from Belgrade, he argued, was akin to Russia threatening Sweden because so many Russian revolutionaries took refuge there. Even the “greater Serbia” propaganda emanating from Belgrade, Sazonov argued, was Austria’s own fault because of the way it misgoverned Serbs.

Pourtalès answered these provocative arguments as carefully as he could, but he could do little to slow down Sazonov’s momentum. Clearly the Russian had gotten wind of Austria’s
intentions, for he was now talking not only about the issue of responsibility for the Sarajevo murders but also about actions he expected Vienna to take. “If Austria-Hungary was determined to break the peace,” Sazonov warned Pourtalès, “she should realize that this time she would have to reckon with Europe.” (Opposite this passage, Kaiser Wilhelm II, reading it about a week later, scribbled “No! But with Russia, yes!”) “Russia could not,” Sazonov continued, “regard any step taken at Belgrade, which was intended to humiliate Serbia, with indifference.” Pourtalès, seeking to calm the Russian’s fears, promised that Serbian rights would be respected; there would be no “humiliation” (
Erniedrigung
) of Belgrade. Unimpressed, Sazonov warned that “Russia would not be able to endure it if Austria-Hungary issued threatening language to Serbia or undertook military measures [against her].” Russia’s policy, he declared, “was pacific but not passive.” To ensure that Pourtalès—and through him, Berlin and Vienna—got the message, Sazonov now issued a threat of his own to Vienna: “whatever happens
there must be no talk of an ultimatum.”
⁸

Russia’s foreign minister had drawn a line in the sand, daring Berchtold to cross it. According to plan, Berchtold would do so exactly two days later.

WEDNESDAY–THURSDAY, 22–23 JULY

W
EDNESDAY MORNING
, 22 J
ULY
, Poincaré was invited to visit the imperial family at the Villa Alexandria, a modest (by Romanov standards) brick cottage not far from the Peterhof. He found the four young archduchesses—Olga, Tatiana, Maria Nicolaevna, and Anastasia—“delightful in their perfect simplicity.” The tsarevich Alexis, ten years old, was pale in complexion and much shier than his sisters, although considering his hemophiliac condition, this was hardly surprising. While cruising the fjords of Finland with the tsar the week before aboard the
Alexandria
, Alexis had stumbled on the bottom rungs of a ladder. The resulting swollen ankle had caused him acute pain. His mother, Alexandra, was also in poor health, suffering from heart trouble and also neuropathia, which resulted from a displacement of her uterus. Because of these well-known maladies, Poincaré was half-expecting to encounter the tsarina’s notorious peasant faith-healer in the household. But Rasputin, as it turned out, had recently been stabbed in the stomach by a young woman while visiting his village at Pokrovskoie, and no one in the family knew where he was or how he was doing. (It later emerged that a surgeon had been sent from the capital to
operate on him in a hospital in Tiumen; Rasputin’s rapid recovery would add to his growing legend as a healer.)

Poincaré’s call was a welcome distraction for the ailing tsarina and her afflicted son. As a visiting head of state from the world capital of luxury goods, it was not hard for the president to please the girls with gifts of diamond watch-bracelets from Paris, which left them “open-mouthed with delight.” But it was Alexis who received the greatest honor, being presented with the Cordon of the Grand Cross, “duly measured for his childish figure”—the first foreign decoration the tsarevich had ever received. Tsar Nicholas II thanked the president profusely (although the gift was actually Paléologue’s idea). Poincaré also gave the boy furniture for his future library, as would befit a sovereign. It was well that the president had come prepared to please Alexis in the imperial villa, for the fragile tsarevich, still recovering from his swollen ankle, would not be able to join the delegation for the train journey to the military parade ground at Krasnoe Selo that afternoon.
¹

Following the presentation of the gifts, Poincaré, accompanied by the tsar, headed back to Peterhof for a luncheon on the terrace with officers of the French squadron, Foreign Minister Sazonov, Russia’s ambassador to France Izvolsky, and Goremykin, chairman of the Council of Ministers. Among the honored guests was Count Fredericks, a general of cavalry who was also chancellor of the Imperial Orders, among many other honorifics relating to his role dispensing “all favors and gifts, all the reproofs and punishments” among the high Russian aristocracy. A man of legendary charm, Fredericks took it on himself to cheer up Viviani, whose sense of discomfiture was obvious to everyone. In addition to homesickness and anxiety over Mme Caillaux, the premier was having digestive difficulties and was worried about his liver. The Russians feared he was having some sort of nervous breakdown. Unlike the tsarevich, however, Viviani
could not opt out of the afternoon program. He would have to endure it as best he could.

At three thirty, the party boarded the imperial train at the Peterhof station for the half-hour journey to Krasnoe Selo. For all but Viviani, leaving the capital behind brought an easing of mood. The diplomatic business had been completed; now it was time for military parades and toasting. As Paléologue described the scene, “a blazing sun lit up the vast plain, tawny and undulating . . . bounded on the horizon by wooded hills. . . . The elite of Petersburg society were crowded into some stands. The light toilettes of the woman, their white hats and parasols made the stands look like azalea beds.” Led by Tsar Nicholas II on horseback, the imperial carriage carrying France’s president along with the tsarina and the four archduchesses proceeded through what seemed to Poincaré like “an interminable lane of troops.” The soldiers all greet their emperor with “the traditional shout.” The progress lasted, in all, about an hour and a half, during which time poor Viviani had to stand in front of the imperial tent. The only consolation was that, when the tsar and the president finally arrived, they, too, were forced to stand for the grand finale, which saw warplanes fly overhead as the military band played a series of French and Russian marches. A triple salvo of artillery blasts then announced the evening prayer. As the “sun was dropping towards the horizon in a sky of purple and gold,” Paléologue wrote in his diary, “a noncommissioned officer recited the
Pater
in a loud voice. All those men, thousands upon thousands, prayed for the Tsar and Holy Russia.” By the time the long ceremony was over, Viviani looked so sickly that Paléologue called a specialist doctor from town to inspect the suffering Frenchman.
²

From the parade field, the party then proceeded to the nearby estate of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, inspectorgeneral of cavalry. Grandson of Tsar Nicholas I, his namesake,
Grand Duke Nicholas was a prince of the blood, whom many Russians wished had been in line for the imperial succession (his father was the third son of Nicholas I, rendering the father third in line, and his son, in turn, still further back). Although wholly loyal to Nicholas II, the grand duke was a stronger personality who, at six foot six inches tall, literally towered over other men (after he took over as commander in chief of Russia’s armies, he had aides put signs above the door at headquarters, reminding him not to bump his head).
³
A fervent Francophile, Grand Duke Nicholas was happy to host the French delegation for a dinner banquet, just as he had on Poincaré’s earlier visit in 1912.

Paléologue was one of the first to arrive. “Three long tables,” he observed, “were set in half-open tents around a garden which was in full flower. The beds had just been watered and from them the fresh scent of flowers . . . rose into the warm air.” As he was admiring the scene, France’s ambassador was “given a boisterous welcome” by the two “Montenegrin Princesses,” Anastasia Nicolaievna, wife of Grand Duke Nicholas, and her sister, Militiza, as they put the final decorations on the tables. It was Anastasia and Militiza who had first introduced the tsarina to Rasputin. Their influence at court was considerable.

The two princesses were happy to see Paléologue. As soon as they finished sprucing up the banquet tables, they both rushed over to the ambassador and all but drooled over him with compliments. One princess carried around a box of soil from “occupied” German Lorraine, which she had visited two years earlier; the other, Paléologue learned, had decorated the tables with thistles—also from Lorraine (apparently she had planted her garden with sacred plants from its Teuton-occupied soil). “We are passing through historic days, blessed days!” the princesses exclaimed, before informing France’s ambassador that, during the military review the grand duke would put on
for them tomorrow, “the bands will play nothing but the
Marche Lorraine
and
Sambre et Meuse
.”

When the champagne started flowing, the mood grew more euphoric still. Grand Duchess Anastasia, as if taking Paléologue into confidence, told France’s ambassador that “there’s going to be war. There’ll be nothing left of Austria. You’re going to get back Alsace and Lorraine. Our armies will meet in Berlin. Germany will be destroyed!” She may have been just warming up, but a “stern gaze” from Tsar Nicholas II cut off this belligerent reverie. Anastasia was, after all, married to the host, a possible commander in chief of the Russian armies. “I must restrain myself,” she told Paléologue with a hint of conspiracy. “The Emperor has his eye on me.”
⁴

Poincaré, occupied most of the time in conversation with the tsar, had a less interesting evening than his ambassador. The president, too, however, noticed the Montenegrin princesses—and not just their beauty. Before and after the dinner, they “plied [him] unceasingly with questions” about Austria and the Balkan crisis. Regretfully, Poincaré told them, he had no answers, assuring them only that he was equally as anxious as they. He did not tell them that earlier that day, he had received a disquieting report from his ambassador in Rome, passing on Italian intelligence that “Germany will make no effort to restrain Austria. In Vienna, they believe that Russia will let Serbia be violated.”
⁵
Lending credence to this report of Austrian arrogance in the face of expected Russian passivity, Anastasia and her sister whispered warnings in the president’s ear about Sazonov, whom they believed to be cowardly and weak. These suggestions dovetailed well with Poincaré’s own concerns. In part because he had spent so much of the summit speaking with the tsar, the president had come to believe that Russia’s sovereign was “more decided” than his foreign minister on a course of defending Serbia.
⁶
Poincaré and the princesses were unaware that Sazonov
had, the preceding evening, issued an explicit threat to Vienna, via Pourtalès, that “there must be no talk of an ultimatum.”

The burgeoning atmosphere of belligerence in the Franco-Russian camp was given an even sharper jolt after the French delegation awoke in their tents the next morning. Even Viviani, invigorated by the country air, was feeling better on Thursday. The military review to be held that morning was, in a sense, the point of the whole summit: a demonstration of the might and unity of the alliance. Anastasia had not misspoken when she promised Paléologue that the band would play nothing but French marches. As the ambassador recorded in his diary,